It is a relief that Firedoglake is back up and running again, especially because writer Brian Sonenstein will be a guest blogger at The Dissenter all week while I am in Costa Rica for a wedding. Sonenstein launched a website called Prison Protest last year. He focuses much of his attention of the role of [...]

Inmates locked up in solitary confinement in Texas remain in those confinement conditions for an average of four years. Over 100 Texas prisoners have spent more than 20 years in solitary confinement. The state also holds at least 2,012 people with mental illness in isolation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. In [...]

Ohio’s prison system is facing a severe overcrowding crisis. With facilities hovering around 130% capacity, prison chief Gary Mohr considered declaring an overcrowding emergency for the first time in the state’s history. This would have granted early release to prisoners nearing the end of their sentences, but those plans were inexplicably scuttled less than a month ago. It was unclear what [...]

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here. [Note for TomDispatch Readers: Today, the first TD special offer of the New Year accompanies Maya Schenwar’s striking report on how the prison experience is spreading in this country. Schenwar’s new book, Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We [...]

A group of journalists, publications, advocacy organizations and individuals who were formerly incarcerated for crimes committed in Pennsylvania are suing to block the enforcement of a state law, which they argue violates their due process and First Amendment rights because it could be used to suppress their speech. In October, the “Revictimization Relief Act” was [...]

Responding to the Nov. 20 ruling buy the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirming Albert Woodfox’s third overturned conviction, the New York Times has written a scathing editorial condemning the treatment of Albert Woodfox by the state of Louisiana.

Kevin Gosztola made another visit to the federal correctional facility in Loretto, Pennsylvania, where CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou is imprisoned. Kiriakou was in good spirits and had begun to count down the days until he is released from Loretto to a halfway house in southeastern Washington, DC.

On March 17, 2013, Christopher Lopez took his last breath at 9:08 AM, stripped and shackled, face down on a cement floor in San Carlos Correctional Facility, while his jailers joked and made chit-chat. During Mr.Lopez’s videotaped death, which began at 3:30 AM, guards subjected him to a forceful cell extraction even though he was limp. When they placed the spit hood over his head and shackled him in the disciplinary transport chair, he slumped to one side and had a grand mal seizure. Without performing any mental health assessment whatsoever, they returned Mr. Lopez to his cell, placed him on the cement next to the toilet, and injected him with two psychotropic drugs.

Forget the ever-diminishing middle class, banksters have found a new target – prisoners. According to the Center For Public Integrity, prison bankers are collecting tens of millions of dollars in fees each year from inmate’s families for providing basic financial services. It turns out desperate family members trying to get money to imprisoned loved ones are very compliant customers.

“When you have a life sentence, it does not promote rehabilitation,” according to Euka Wadlington, a forty-eight year-old African-American who is serving two life sentences in federal prison in Greenville, Illinois. “By design, you are locked up in a cage until you die.”

As he explains being in prison for life without the possibility of parole, “You have no good time to work towards, you can’t work certain jobs in the institution, you can’t enroll in certain classes that works towards reentry, and you could never go to a federal camp. So, being stripped of these few things, you are naked.”